Maghera tales

Off to Maghera today. We go there for the wide, wide stretch of beach, soft white sand, dunes, air…

The wind was whipping up the surf, blowing the sand into streamers, up high the weather was coursing over the beach.

We walked into one of the caves on the south side …there are thirteen in all.

You can see the cave - a dark space half way up the picture

This was the first, set high on the cliff. Local folklore relates, and the girl in the car park kiosk repeated the tale ..that 500 people were in hiding there shortly after the 1916 Rising – but the Black and Tans were alerted to their presence when they had to light a fire one night as a woman went into childbirth. All but one were massacred – he hid himself on a high ledge.

These days, it looks like the odd rave happens there, nightlights perched on the shelving rocks.

Another local tale tells how a man and his dog went walking into the thirteenth cave. The dog emerged some time later from the hillside here at Port, five miles away as the chough flies, but the man was never seen again.